NSF Supports Women in Science

The funding agency is taking strides to avoid losing parents from the scientific workforce.

By Jef Akst | September 27, 2011

FLICKR, JOHN HOPE

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is introducing 10-year initiative to provide increased flexibility to scientists wanting to start families, the White House announced today. Among the changes, the agency's new policies will allow researchers to suspend their grants for up to a year to take leave for family reasons, including having or adopting a child. In addition, researchers will be able to apply for grant funds dedicated to paying technicians to maintain lab work during such leaves. The policy would also encourage increased use of "virtual" grant reviews that would allow researchers to do such work from home, and avoid traveling to the NSF headquarters in Arlington, Virginia.

The NSF hopes that the new policies will support the reentry of scientists, and women in particular, to the workforce. "Too many women give up because of conflicts between their desire to start a family and their desire to ramp-up their careers," John Holdren, the president's science adviser and head of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, told ScienceInsider.

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Anonymous

September 27, 2011

I'm not sure that this policy will help.Â The average age to receive one's *first* NIH grant is 43, an non-optimal age for a woman to begin a family.Â Perhaps the NIH should provide unlimited free fertility treatments to their scientific researchers?Â (tongue in cheek)

I'm not sure that this policy will help.Â The average age to receive one's *first* NIH grant is 43, an non-optimal age for a woman to begin a family.Â Perhaps the NIH should provide unlimited free fertility treatments to their scientific researchers?Â (tongue in cheek)

I'm not sure that this policy will help.Â The average age to receive one's *first* NIH grant is 43, an non-optimal age for a woman to begin a family.Â Perhaps the NIH should provide unlimited free fertility treatments to their scientific researchers?Â (tongue in cheek)